The Office in Progress

Hello all!  Just thought I would do a progress post about our office.  Sorry for the bad pictures.  It was rainy yesterday and I couldn't use natural light.

I have been mentioning the office since I started the blog and I thought it was time to post a few pics even though it is not finished and half of the room looks like a fly tying bomb went off in it...more on that later.

This room has always been the guest room that we knew was going to be the office.  For a long time it was the junk room.  I figured you didn't need before pictures of this since we all know what I am talking about.  Just imagine Monica's secret locked closet at the end of the hall.  Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad but there was a lot of stuff living in that room and we were not using it for anything but storage.  I got it cleaned up and set up this fly tying station for my husband.  This is where he is supposed to sit and tie flies for fishing.  Perfect little space right?  Except he says he can't watch TV in the office while tying his flies.  My bad.  Long story short, it now looks like a bomb of feathers, hooks, weird tools and bright colored strings went off on the desk and the fall out landed in the surrounding area.  I am trying to fix the problem but we are going with this picture until the aftermath has been cleaned up.

Brian's space has been taken care of but now it was my turn.  I wanted a desk that was a big enough space to do crafts and sewing so I started looking for tables instead of a desks.  I came across this dated beauty on Craigslist.  It also has 4 matching chairs.

Here is the after.

I stained the top a mix of several colors.  I wanted it to look greyish like weathered drift wood but not too grey so I added some walnut stain to darken it up a little.  The base and the chairs are painted a fun blue color I had left over from Jaxson's Skiff Bed.  Love the finished project.  I got a great deal on the table & chairs and I had all the supplies & paint for the refinish so the cost was minimal for a huge workspace.

Here is what the desk and surroundings look like.

Kind of blah, I know.  I still haven't decided what to put on the wall behind my desk.  I have a few things to decorate with but I'm not loving any of my ideas which means it is still pretty naked.   Nothing brilliant has come to me but hopefully soon. :)

I do love my lamp.  This lamp was purchased years ago and used to be in our  spare room in Texas.  It has been hanging out in this room since we moved and finally has a purpose.  I know its strange to see a floor lamp on a table but when I am at my desk the ceiling light and the window are behind me and they create shadows on anything I am working on.  To get rid of my lack of light, shadow problem, I put my floor lamp on my desk.  It is high enough to light up the whole area unlike a table lamp that would only light up the immediate area.  It also works because the on/off button is on the cord not up high near the lamp part.

I also love my custom dry erase board on the wall left of the desk.

I had this frame laying around so I decided to make it a dry erase board for notes and reminders.  The picture is from a map I inherited from my grandfather who was a boat captain.  He started a marine business, took us fishing and out on boats as children, and ultimately triggered my love/obsession of the water.  I have several of his maps from the 1970s on the walls in the office but they are not being shown right now because they are in the bombing zone...lol...they will make the next office post.  I didn't want to hurt any of the maps by folding or cutting them so I made colored copies of the area I wanted framed and pieced them together.  This is the final result.  It is of Rockport, TX which is where Brian and I want to live/retire so it is a constant reminder of our future goal.  I didn't have to buy anything for this project so it was free!  Love that! 

And lastly for now, I love my curtains. 

I talked about our tall ceilings in my post about our master bedroom.  It is really hard to find curtains long enough even if they are ordered.  The options are always limited and the price is rediculous.  I went to Joann's and the blue patterned fabric was on sale and it matched the desk BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH!  Blah.  I hate it when that happens.  So I decided to add a stripe of cream fabric at the top to "make it work" as Tim Gunn would say.  This let me use the blue fabric and it broke up the busy blue pattern.  I made two 9.5 foot panels for less than $30 and the curtain rod we had already.  Thank you mom for teaching me how to sew!

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have things organized better and I will figure out what to do with that blank wall behind my desk.

Thanks for reading and visiting my blog!